Day 34: Seville to El Rocio

April 4, 2023

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As we left the central Santa Cruz area of Seville by the Cathedral, I realized that we had ranged in our time in the city only about as far as the McDonalds by the river. That's 550 meters. So I was curious as to what else this large city might have to look at. I was surprised that the first thing of note was a large kind of castle façade, backed by many streets of now closed stalls. This turned out to be the site of a large April fair.

We were glad that we found a way through.

There were many streets of little stalls.

We also got to see the arrival of a lot of the caleches that would be seen by the Cathedral. We determined that they do not live at the fairground, but were only passing through.

Beyond the fairground, I recorded some scenes that were very much dull city stuff. We know very well that even the most famous and beautiful cities are mostly boring, disorganized, and overrun by traffic outside of the old core. This, of course, does not apply to Paris! And Dodie pointed out that really Seville was pretty nice throughout.

After passing through a bit more suburb, we got onto a bike path and then a road that looked like it had been built for a subdivision, that never happened. We sailed along through all this, without really a sense of where in the town we were, or why.

When we were finally out of town - about 14 km and 2 hours out - we began to pass additional stuff that seemed just random. There was some kind of large casino looking thing, with a lot of parking, and for sale, some gated communities, some kind of adventure park, until we reached the endless but understandable olive orchards.

Here an olive orchard was being grubbed out

The road was ok, but slightly nerve wracking due to a bit of high speed from the cars, slightly narrow shoulder, and steep drop off ditches beside us.

At Aznalcazar we ran into something else that we understand, a little chapel. This did not feature any Samana Santa floats being "garaged", but it did have some of the same iconography. Here was a Jesus with the three rays of power, and a Mary with nice crown, but not looking happy about it. Another Mary had a golden crown, and looked a little happier about it.

The little chapel - Capilla de Nuestro Padre Jesus

Deeper in the town we found the main church -Saint Pablo. Despite a sign that made it seem very interesting, there was no way in. We looked for the back float garage, secret little doors, etc., but no luck.

Dodie seemed to have some schemes for getting back on our track, after the St Pablo research, but these just seemed to involve going up and down a long 7% hill.

The hill did at least have this flowering shrub, which I had been meaning to record. It seems capable of other colour variation as well, like orange and red, all on the same bush. I think this is called Lantanas.

We stopped next in Pilas to eat our sandwiches.

For entertainment we had a large truck jackknifed around a fountain in front of us.

The next part of the ride was interesting but boring too. This involved passing through an area of infinite plastic covered hoop houses, sheltering strawberries and other plantings that we could not identify. There was 15-20 km of this, also passing through a park called Donana Park.

Telephoto shot into a greenhouse reveals the berries are ready to go.

By the time we reached El Rocio we were pretty tired and ready for the day to end. But here we ran into something unexpected and bizarre. The streets of El Rocio are entirely made of sand - some quite deep. And the buildings are on wide streets, with not parking spots but rather hitching posts out front. It looks like an Arizona cowboy scene. In places the wide streets became wide open areas, all sand filled. I was saying it looked like a site for the Calgary Stampede. We had to push our bikes for a couple of kms, until we could reach our hotel.

It turns out El Rocio is a world famous not only horse centred heaven, but also a site for a giant pilgrimage that happens around Pentecost.

According to andalucia.org, this is a centre of Andalucian culture, with proud caballeros on horses, flamenco, singing in the streets, and the pilgrimage:

"It is an area of small white houses, with a lot of tradition, all of them surrounding the Hermitage of the Virgen del Rocío , where the Blanca Paloma resides, the name given to this Virgin and of which there are thousands of devotees who weekly go to venerate her

Its unique urban and landscape characteristics make it a unique place to live the religious fervor towards the " White Dove " and the natural placidity of Doñana . The pilgrimage activity closely linked to the horse has configured the village as an ideal place for the practice of equestrian activities , becoming the main reference in the Region in the organization of equestrian competitions.

During the Rocío Pilgrimage, more than a million people come to this place in the province of Huelva to venerate the Virgin, giving this village a spectacular color. A Virgin dating from the 14th century."

"This place is almost unreal, all built on sand and looking as though Clint Eastwood is going to walk around the corner, six-guns blazing. In the middle of it all is the church - don't leave without having a walk around inside. Absolutely fascinating."

There are several churches in town, not sure which is which yet, but we do think this is the hermitage housing the famous virgin carving. If yes, it is not far from our hotel!

Tomorrow we will try to both leave town quickly (by ducking the sand, somehow) and to check out the Virgin's church. It will be a long ride to Huelva. But we have booked into a luxury hotel where the Classens' went, so there will be a good spot for collapsing.

Today's ride: 71 km (44 miles)
Total: 1,346 km (836 miles)

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Keith ClassenHi Steve - if you are making your way into Huelva on the track we took make sure you don’t make the same mistake we did going across the bridge in Huelva. Stay on path adjacent to the road with the fence between you and the railway tracks. It may be obvious to you but it wasn’t to us.
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1 year ago

Keith ClassenHi Steve - that should read “causeway” rather than “bridge” above
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonYou made it to El Rocio! Surely one of the strangest towns we’ve ever visited.
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith ClassenTganks for the advice. We ended up choosig a route that entered from the north and avoided all confusing choices.
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonIsn't it though?
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1 year ago